


tune in to the lonely voices

by icemachine



Category: Will & Grace
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s01e09 I Never Promised You an Olive Garden, Gen, M/M, Telepathy, based off of uhh, my city now., vague willjack implications because it's me but not a focus here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 18:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18104141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: The first time that Grace can feel Will’s mind, they’re supposed to be having sex. It does not go as planned.





	tune in to the lonely voices

**Author's Note:**

> why do we never talk about that episode where will and grace talk to each other telepathically and the show is like it's nbd

i.

 

The first time that Grace can feel Will’s mind, they’re supposed to be having sex. It does not go as planned.

 

_ I can’t do this, I— _

 

Will’s “voice” is an echoing constant, thrumming a whitened noise through each cranial nerve; it sounds like the wrong begs of  _ God,  _ sounds like  _ visceral, organ-rotting pain,  _ sounds like frantic  _ what am I doing, he was right, I can’t keep lying to myself, I don’t want to be lost anymore, I’m so tired.  _

 

& Grace pushes him off of her, out of love, out of so much  _ love, _ and says,  _ “What are you talking about? _ ”

 

“What?” Will asks; his voice is saturated with guilt. His real voice. His “voice” sounds nothing like his voice.

 

“Why’d you say that? Who is ‘he’? And what do you mean you’re lost?”

 

They’re both new to this, bodies too young and too old, too fragile and too desparate & _ how—what—why— _

_. _

_ How— _

 

Grace folds her arms. “Well?”

 

“I didn’t…” Will’s face gives in, a perfect curving representation of distress & he’s sighing, and sighing, and sighing, and his shoulders are relaxing, and Grace had not noticed his discomfort until this moment but he is fully immersed in it, enveloped in a white light of fallen grace and not fallen Grace. “I didn’t  _ say  _ that.”

 

“Yes, you did. I heard you.”

 

“I  _ thought it,  _ but I didn’t—wait.”

 

“Don’t—don’t. Just, don’t.”

 

_ She’s upset. I can’t tell her, I just can’t break her heart like that. _

 

_ But I can’t hurt myself like this either. _

 

“Hurt yourself? Will, what are you talking about?” 

 

Grace’s lip is trembling, and the rest of her is trembling;  _ the world is crashing down around us, I just can’t  _ **_do_ ** _ this. She means the world to me. She is the world to me. _

 

The world is crashing down around them. God, they’re so young. Grace can’t get it out of her mind: they’re so young, her life can’t end when she’s twenty. The dramatic aura of the situation seems to escape her; when you are this young, everything seems like the crashing-down of the world, the folding of the universe, the worst possible scar.

 

And she’s just so  _ young _ .

 

Will throws himself out of bed. “Grace,” he  _ says,  _ “I love you. I love you so much. But I don’t love you.”

 

She’s crying, now; typical her, Grace thinks, typical downfall.

 

“I mean—that’s not what I meant. What I meant to say, is that, um....”

 

“Oh. Yeah. Keep going, keep shattering my heart into pieces. I’m fine.”

 

“I’m  _ gay,  _ Grace,” Will tells her; his demeanor says  _ terror  _ but he’s breathing steady sighs of relief. “I think I’m going to leave now.”

 

“Wait—”

 

ii.

 

There’s a boy sitting next to him on his bed and in any other situation he’d be exploring,  _ hoping, y e a r n i n g  _ if the boy was not Jack McFarland.

 

He’s going on about the new record he just bought, how  _ fabulous  _ and hot it is, and Will wishes that he could feel what Jack feels, become the being that Jack is—-comfortable with shedding off the expected skin of heterosexuality, comfortable in his own skin—-comfortable with being  _ gay,  _ openly, proudly, wholly. 

 

Will thinks he’ll get there someday, but for now he can’t stop thinking about Grace.

 

“Hello? Will.” Jack is snapping his fingers in front of Will’s face, and Will can smell the moisturizer he uses—coconut something—vanilla?—and thinks:  _ maybe I’m so desparate to get laid that I’m actually finding Jack attractive right now.  _ “Will. Are you still here? Can you hear my voice?”

 

The attraction has fled, but Will has the horrifying knowledge that Jack would give him anything in a  _ heartbeat  _ if he desired it & that makes the ever-present guilt inside of Will claw even deeper.

 

“Sorry,” Will says. “I was just thinking.”

 

“That’s never good,” Jack laughs, his entire body basking in the “humor”, but he stiffens when he sees Will’s tired glare. “Sorry. I just hope you’re not still thinking about that ex-girlfriend of yours.”

 

“Maybe I am, what’s wrong with that?”

 

“Um, hello, you’re on our side now, remember?”

 

A feminine voice, in his mind, begins to wail, and he’s tuning out Jack again.  _ I can’t believe he did this to me. I can’t believe—I can’t believe this is my life now.  _

 

**_I feel awful. I wish I could take it back._ **

 

**_…_ **

 

**_No, I don’t. I just wish I could be with Grace again. Is that selfish?_ ** He’s talking to the voices in his mind now, he’s going  _ crazy.  _ Will just wants Grace. He doesn’t, surprisingly, want to be straight. He just wants Grace.

 

_ I just want Will again,  _ responds someone—it couldn’t be—-that is  _ absurd— _

 

_ I can get over him being gay. I just want to talk to him again. _

 

**_I just want…_ **

 

_ I just want… _

 

**_my friend_ **

 

_ my friend _

 

**_back_ **

 

_ back. _

 

“I’m gonna kick you out if you don’t pay attention to me, Will.” A pause. “That sounded kinda selfish, but… eh.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Will says, and he is. “Let’s go out. My treat, whatever you want.”

 

Jack smiles at him, that  _ smile.  _ So wide, so bright. The guilt is unbearable. “You’re so sweet,” he says. ‘Wow! Can’t believe it.” He looks like he’s about to cry, for one sliver of a second, until “C’mon, let’s go.”

 

They leave in complete silence.

 

iii.

 

The voices come. They keep coming. They are omnipresent. They all sound like Grace Adler, her tone, her colloquialisms, her admirable words and phrases, and Will allows his hope to accumulate.

 

He knows that it is dangerous, ridiculous,  _ crazy.  _ Who comes out and then starts hearing voices in his head? Voices that sound like his ex-girlfriend? It’s the perfect picture: Will comes out of the closet, Will goes crazy. Everyone is going to love hearing that story.

 

At first it’s the telepathic equivalent of small-talk;  _ what are you doing today? It’s cold out, so I’m staying in. Hey, me too. I’m underneath three blankets. Well,  _ **_I_ ** _ haven’t even gotten out of bed today. I’m so tired. I’m so, so tired. _

 

Today, however. Will is going to try something—something absolutely  _ crazy,  _ but it’s worth a try, everything is worth a try, he’s missing Grace so much that he’s hallucinating her and it is  _ pathetic— _

 

iv.

 

It wakes Grace up in the middle of the night.  **_Are you there?_ **

 

The voice is a plague. The voice comes. The voice keeps coming. The voice is omnipresent. It sounds like Will Truman, his tone, his colloquialisms, his admirable words and phrases, and Grace allows her anger to accumulate.

 

Look at Grace. It’s sad. Her boyfriend wants a boyfriend and now she’s going crazy.

 

_ Now I am. I was asleep, and you—er, me—you—uh—there better be a good reason for waking me up. _

 

**_Have you ever been to the coffee shop—the one that looks like a gay bar on the outside but serves bowls of chocolate-covered espresso beans on the inside?_ **

  
  


Grace’s heart  _ beats;  _ she went there with Will once. In hindsight…

 

_ Yeah, I have. Why? _

 

**_If you’re real…. and I’m not out of my mind…. meet me there tomorrow at seven._ **

 

Grace wants to say  _ no, never, I’m not going, this is screaming a shrill  _ **_t r o u b l e_ ** _ and I am not going. _

 

Instead, she is soft. Instead, she “says”:  _ I’ll be there. _

 

v.

 

Will stares into Grace Adler’s eyes. They don’t need words;  _ I forgive you, I missed you  _ & Grace pulls Will into a flowing embrace. 

 

Whatever this connection is, they’re going to have it perpetually, Will and Grace moving through each other’s minds, a dance until the end of time; a friendship to envy; the platonic kind of love that the rest of the world craves insatiably. 

 

Will is finally at peace. Grace is finally at peace. The twists and turns of life, momentarily, have finally found  _ peace.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> pls kudos+comment if enjoyed thank u


End file.
